10.10.2012

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Where to begin on this one? I really liked this book. It was well done, it was also a challenging read because of the setup. The books starts with characters on a boat sailing back to San Francisco, then jumps to a composer in Belgium, then to a woman journalist in California, then to a British gentleman, then to a future clone, and then finally to remnants of humans. Once this apex is reached it then goes in reverse order back through the characters with the book finally ending with the original characters who finally reach San Francisco. Each story is linked to the previous story because the composer reads the diary of the person going to San Francisco, and the letters of the composer goes to a scientist, who then shows up with journalist in California, and then the journalist story is picked up by the Brit, who's story becomes a movie which the clone sees, and then finally the clone becomes a symbol to the human remnants. To some I imagine the convience of these links crossing across the stories become a bit silly but it becomes clearer that all these characters across these stories have all played a similar role. To me the following quote from the book gives the ahhh moment:

"I watched clouds awobbly form the floor o' that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say wher the cloud's blowed frmo or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds."

And that in a nutshell is the book. Fascinating book, one that I gave a lot of thought to which is often rare. ﻿

The trouble with LIFE is that we understand it backwards, but have to live it forwards. We keep moving through life trying to figure it out as we go along, living experimentally, trying out different attitudes and theories, changing our minds, reversing ourselves sometimes, sometimes coming back to where we were at the beginning.--Bishop Richard Holloway